Major Investment Analysis for Multimodal Projects in Urban Corridors: FinalReport

摘要

Urban areas considering major transportation investments evaluate alternativesusing various techniques such as benefit-cost analysis and cost effectiveness measures. A comprehensive benefit-cost analysis is the least biased method of judging project merit when crossmodal impacts are significant. Using Oklahoma City data, five build alternatives in two corridors were examined using three different evaluation methodologies: (1) user benefit analysis, described in a 1977 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials manual; (2) cost effectiveness, which employs the Federal Transit Administration's average cost per new transit rider index; and (3) benefit-cost analysis, developed specifically for this study. The alternatives included light rail transit and high occupancy vehicle lanes. The study illustrates how benefit-cost analysis can incorporate important crossmodal interactions by distinguishing between passenger and commercial traffic, and trip purposes and vehicle types. The study demonstrates several innovative methodologies including procedures for calculating user benefits when the travel forecasting model uses a fixed trip table, estimating congestion relief to highway modes resulting from transit investments, and incorporating non-user costs such as air quality, noise, and parking subsidies. When properly applied benefit-cost analysis reveals important transfer payments which are not apparent from other, more aggregate, evaluation techniques. A major finding is that the overall quality of an investment study is heavily dependent on the travel modeling procedures.